Little Deaths
by doryphore
Summary: Words failed her. They didn't often, but no clever quip came to mind, no insult that would worm its way into his mind and stay there, making his hatred grow. Only silence, inside of her. The kind of silence that books gave her.
1. one

When she was little, her parents used to bribe her with books.

Before magic, or before magic being real, books were the only thing that could settle her. They calmed her mind—the shapes of the words on the page, the way they ebbed and flowed, all pointed serifs and empty graceful spaces between them—and books were the only way she could make sense of things. To learn all about things, their histories, how they worked. They gave her a away to rationalize all the emotions (being confused or uncertain or scared or cowardly) that made her weak. If she knew everything she possibly could, then she could beat all of those things with her knowledge. To know something is not to fear it.

She had a vivid memory of going to work with her parents when she was eight or nine, when things started to get weird. The door to their practice had a bell above it that spoke of every patient, coming in or going out. She liked to sit in the waiting room with her eyes closed, counting the number of rings and guessing who came in and who left.

One day her father gave her a book while she sat in the waiting room, a thick tome that told of every possible mouth ailment that could affect a person, and told her to sit still. It was the only thing that worked to calm her mind, to read over and over the lines of the book until they were ingrained inside of her. And sometimes, when her father would be stumped as to what was wrong with a patient and express his annoyance at the dinner table, she would quietly say one or the other of the diseases she had learned in the book. Not in the know-it-all way she'd adopt later and be proud of, because it was a shield, but in the way of shallow uncertainty, because she could be wrong and it wouldn't bother her.

Hermione always loved books. They lived inside of her, a sheltered home for the lost words.

* * *

><p>It was late in the day—Potions had lasted far longer than the allotted time because Seamus somehow kept blowing up his cauldron when the directions <em>clearly <em>stated that you were to dice the tear berry and not crush it—and Hermione was tired. She had two scrolls to write for History of Magic and pages and pages of reading to do for Arithmancy, plus Harry and Ron had asked for her help with the Transfiguration homework she'd gotten done last week, so it didn't look like there'd be any time to rest tonight. She should've been used to the lack of sleep, should've been bathing in it, because all of her time spent not sleeping at night was spent in the common room, touching and kissing and accessing something primal that she'd only read about. Read extensively about, mind you, but nothing actually compared.

But today, no. She would fall asleep at the table at dinner if she let this go on. Perhaps she could sneak into her dormitory while everyone was gone and curl up on her bed and pull the covers over her head and fall inside that emptiness of dreaming. She readjusted her bag on her shoulder and watched the rest of the class file up the stairs, then turn toward the Great Hall. Her bed was all the way on the other side of the castle and it would take ages to walk there, even if she took her favorite shortcut past the Divination tower. The library was much closer. The library had cushy chairs and books to surround her, words to lull her to sleep. She could nap in the library, then wake up and finish her homework. Perfect.

The walk to the library was short and her feet seemed to lead her there of their own accord. It was her home, more than her four-poster bed and the window that overlooked the lake. She loved the worn spines that lined the shelves, the red diamond-shaped tiles that dotted the floor, and the fragile elegance of Madam Pince's desk, presiding over all with its peeling gold paint and the old, stained-glass pull-chain lamp. Madam Pince understood getting lost in books. She liked books better than people, as evidenced by the permanent downturn to her lips, but she and Hermione had a truce for the sake of the books.

She wandered over to the Reference section, trailing her hand along the beveled carvings on the shelves as she went, praying for no splinters. When she turned the corner, though, there was someone already stationed in her favorite chair, his legs thrown lazily over one of the arms. He was wearing shiny snakeskin loafers that reflected the lamplight from the tables around and it caught her eye. She held up a hand to shield against it and he let out a chuckle.

Draco Malfoy.

Ever since last year, there'd been a quiet truce between the two of them. Perhaps not so with Harry, but then Harry didn't know what Hermione had done. How she'd saved his life when the only other option was ending it. No one knew how Malfoy had gotten out of there alive, save himself and Hermione.

Words failed her. They didn't often, but no clever quip came to mind, no insult that would worm its way into his mind and stay there, making his hatred grow. Only silence, inside of her. The kind of silence that books gave her.

"Well?" he said. "Can I help you?"

Even his voice was pure arrogance. She knew it was a front, the only front he'd ever learned and that it worked, that only truly evil people actually wanted to be friends with him because he was a bully and a snitch. But that didn't bring any insults to mind. It only brought more silence.

She turned and left the room, her heart racing in her chest. Sleep wouldn't come, now. And even if it did, in some other part of the library, she would feel his presence like a heartbeat, on the other side of the shelves.

They were connected, now. And the only way to get away was to run, to find the safety of Ron and Harry and their stupid inside jokes and constant babbling about quidditch. Draco Malfoy wasn't safe. He was the furthest thing from it.


	2. two

She didn't often remember her dreams. That didn't really bother her, either, because she had to listen to enough recounting of Ron's naked-before-the-crowd dreams and Harry's evil-is-coming-beware-the-prophecy dreams to fill in her own. She always imagined that when she was sleeping, her brain was still practicing magic. If she slept on a hard spell sometimes, she could wake up in the morning and complete it successfully.

But the nightmares were different. They'd been coming since last summer, since the night at the Ministry where everything had exploded and Harry's world had partially collapsed and Ron, oh Ron, had come fairly close to dying—they would grip hold of her mind and play over and over and over the next day. They always had _him_, in the grips of some curse that was making him scream. A slow killing at the hands of Harry Potter.

And she always sat there, doing nothing.

Then morning would come, never a jolt awake in the middle of the night, and she'd wake up and try to fill her head with Potions and Transfiguration and that awful new teacher's Defense Against the Dark Arts, but it would never leave her.

She hadn't had a nightmare in ages and last time, it had been about failing a Charms test, so she thought she'd gotten over it. Done with this whole nonsense of Draco Malfoy acting like a victim. But that night, when she finally fell asleep after the mountain of homework was done and a well snog with Ron, the familiar clatter of the Ministry collapsing around her overtook her brain.

And all night long, she listened to Draco Malfoy scream.

* * *

><p>Ron hadn't quite gotten a hold of being a boyfriend yet—he still slapped her on the back and called her 'mate' and missed her mouth when he was kissing her before class. The next morning at breakfast, he said to her: "Merlin, Hermione, you have huge bags under your eyes."<p>

She glared at him over the stack of toast on the platter between then. "And Merlin, Ron, your tact hasn't improved at all."

Harry stuck his head from around his _Daily Prophet_ to narrow his eyes at the two of them. "Have you seen this?" He turned the front page around to face them and a picture of Bellatrix Lestrange laughed at them maniacally. The headline said, "Lestrange or Lesane?"

"I don't know why you still read that nonsense," she said, snatching the paper from Harry's hands. She rolled it up and set it down on the bench next to her. She was planning to read it later, but no one needed to know that.

"It's good entertainment," Harry said. He ran a hand through his hair, obviously hoping to quell its unruliness, but it only stuck up more in the back.

"She's writing a book," Ginny said from Harry's other side. "About You-Know-Who."

"You mean Rita Skeeter's writing a book," Hermione corrected.

Ginny shrugged. "Well, that's what the article said. It'll be out in a few months."

"I wish I'd killed her when I got the chance," Ron said. It was supposed to be a joke, the way he said it, to lighten the heavy mood that had fallen over the table, but it came out wrong. Like Ron really was sorry he hadn't _killed_ her.

Hermione sighed. Everyone was annoying her today. She gathered her bag and the rolled-up newspaper from the bench next to her and said, "I'm off to finish some reading. I'll see you all in Potions?"

"Unfortunately," Harry said.

She touched Ron's hand over the table and he smiled that slightly-confused, crooked smile of his. She loved that smile. It made any lingering ache from her nightmare go away.

When she slipped from the bustle of the Great Hall, she headed straight back to the library. She nodded at Madam Pince as she passed and found her nook again, thankfully empty today. Her chair had stuffing coming from one of the arms and she could feel its springs in her back, but she curled up on it and unfurled The Daily Prophet in front of her.

Ever since the night last year at the Ministry, after Harry and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (okay, Voldemort, she could say it now) had dueled and he had finally, finally been defeated, The Daily Prophet had turned into a veritable tabloid about some of his former followers. Lucius Malfoy had died in the fight but Narcissa and Draco still graced its pages when they were seen on holidays. But Bellatrix Lestrange writing a book about the whole ordeal from behind bars at Azkaban was the most ridiculous news Hermione had ever heard. Even as she perused the article, she couldn't contain the viciously inappropriate giggles that escaped her.

"Something funny, Granger?"

She set the _Prophet_ down in her lap and stared at Malfoy coldly. She wanted badly to insult him ("Only you setting foot in a library. This is a place of _learning,_ Malfoy, something you seem dead-set against."), but the silence took over her insides. He'd been screaming in her head all night and she saw it when she blinked, on the insides of her eyelids—his body prostrate and writhing, mouth gaping wide and brow furrowed in agony. And she hadn't stopped it. Even if it wasn't a dream, she never stopped it. Somehow she felt that made her worse than him.

He stalked closer to her and ran his index finger over the spines of the books lining the shelf next to her. "So you've read about Bellatrix's book, then?"

She sighed. "Are you following me, Malfoy? You are everywhere."

He smiled. It changed his whole face—from sullen and dour to almost-handsome in half a second. Not a fake smile, then. "Perhaps you're the one following me."

She rolled her eyes. "I assure you, I would not follow you."

"Then what makes you think I would?"

She shrugged. "Because you hate me. And you're trying to scare me into staying quiet."

He let out a bad imitation of a laugh. She didn't think she'd ever seen him laugh before without that wormy smirk on his face and it unsettled her. "That's what you think," he finally said. He leaned his hip against the bookshelf. "I'm trying to scare you."

She squared her shoulders and folded up the _Prophet_ a little more neatly. "I'm not going to tell anyone anyway, so you can stop following me."

He stared at her for a moment, that icy jaw-hardened set to his mouth. The laughter was gone from his face, replaced by something akin to puzzlement. He dipped his head. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

Then he turned and walked away.

So he _was_ following her? That explained last night, then, and three days ago when she'd felt his eyes on her from the window nook along the way she walked to Transfiguration. But what did he mean, _that's what you think_? As though he wasn't trying to scare her, as though he didn't hate her. But why follow her if he had other intentions? What did he want?

She smoothed the creases in the paper. Potions would start in ten minutes, so she knew she should start her walk there. But she kept going over and over it in her mind, the conversation, the way he'd stood, the sharply-ironed planes of his robe and the carefully gelled shape of his hair. It was like a bruise, the tiny pressure of her brain on the spot where he'd been.

It was ages before she could coax herself to leave the library. She was almost late.

Hermione Granger was _never _late.


End file.
